The loss of the USS Maine is an interesting case...may have been a false flag "attack"...may have been a mere accidental mishap (spontaneous combustion in the ship's coal bunkers causing a magazine explosion) rather than an attack. If so, it occurred at the absolute perfect time and place to start a war with Spain, which seems just a little too perfect. Whatever it was, it was used as an excuse to whip up war fever in the USA for a war that could only end in big and desirable gains for the USA, giving them major possessions and vital naval bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Spain never had a chance. The USA still occupies an important base in Cuba to this day...Guantanamo. That this is so is almost as incredible as it would be for Soviet Russia to have had a major military base in, say, Israel or South Korea or Japan...during the Cold War.

The USA occupation of the Phillipines in 1898, supposedly done to "free the Filipinos", ended up as a terribly bloody war of occupation fought against the native Filipinos by the US Army. The same people who had fought Spanish colonial rule died by the thousands fighting American colonial rule in one of the most vicious colonial wars on record. Filipinos finally gained their independence about half a century later, following the end of WWII.

A number of USA wars have been launched after an attack...or at least an alleged attack...on a USA warship (or warships). One which was not launched was an American war on Israel after Israeli jets and torpedo boats deliberately and repeatedly attacked and tried to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American intelligence gathering ship, during the 6-Day War. America was a neutral in that conflict.

The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.[2] The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship.[3] At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.[1][4]

Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the identity of the USS Liberty,[5] though others, including all of the ship's survivors that could be located four decades later, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.[6]

In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 (US$22.2 million in 2012) as full payment to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 in compensation to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the final U.S. bill of $17,132,709 for material damage to the Liberty itself plus 13 years' interest.[7]

If the USA had desired a war with Israel, this incident would have served the purpose admirably. The USA, however, had no such desire, so what would have landed any targeted country of American policy in extremely hot water proved simply to be an incident that embarrassed the 2 powers involved.

Imagine if an Arab nation had done it....